MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => Shutterstock.com => Topic started by: Rinderart on March 13, 2016, 12:13
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Wow. Just happened to look to the right. How did that happen.?
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Maybe someone with a good month just posted. (?)
NB, I just posted my iStock month earlier, and it has since dropped 11.5 pts.
Maybe not many people are posting nowadays?
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Wow. Just happened to look to the right. How did that happen.?
Hello,
I saw it also. It is already since two months going on i think. I am myself on the Alamy forum also and it seems that there where last months 1000$ sales. Also growth in 240$. Also on the Alexa rank Alamy shoot form position 16.000 to 9000.
Some people think it is because of growth of clients and photographers from Corbis.
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How great would it be if content was migrating away from getty to alamy, and taking buyers along?
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How great would it be if content was migrating away from getty to alamy, and taking buyers along?
It would be great.
You can check out the discussion re: Alamy's move to #3 then #2 here:
http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-big-6/alamy-passed-fotolia/msg447381/#msg447381 (http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-big-6/alamy-passed-fotolia/msg447381/#msg447381)
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I gave up on Alamy, because they never sold anything, wouldn't defend my copyright, and couldn't get my stuff listed correctly (they kept offering it as RM instead of RF)
If this continues, I may have to go back to them. Maybe they had a coup.
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I gave up on Alamy, because they never sold anything, wouldn't defend my copyright, and couldn't get my stuff listed correctly (they kept offering it as RM instead of RF)
If this continues, I may have to go back to them. Maybe they had a coup.
Just jump to the thread mentioned by Wordplanet and you will see why many think that they make to less sales on Alamy. It is a question of different approach.
Mirco
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Anyway the poll will never give a good indication of the potential of each agency. To have accurate results everyone should register on MSG and everyone should submit everywhere before giving poll results. Then the list would look totally different.
MIrco
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... Anyway i think Alamy should not be even included in the poll since it is not a micro agency.
Mirco
How do you define 'micro'? If by price, Alamy RM prices can be as low - or lower - than micro prices, though they can be higher.
My sales are going up, but my RPI is going down pretty rapidly.
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... Anyway i think Alamy should not be even included in the poll since it is not a micro agency.
Mirco
How do you define 'micro'? If by price, Alamy RM prices can be as low - or lower - than micro prices, though they can be higher.
My sales are going up, but my RPI is going down pretty rapidly.
For me micro is combination of price, credits and subscription system. I know that Alamy has low prices but it also gives lots of high prices. See also what user Worldplanet is reporting. The average sales price on Alamy is 75 brutto / 37,50 netto while on micro it would be around 1 dollar.
Alamy wend down with prices but micros also. I remember the days where 1 till 5 dollar sales where just normal. In these days you can change them in subscription sales for 0,28 til 0,75 dollars. I still prefer the average of 37,50 on alamy even if sales are less frequent.
You can sell RM sometimes for low prices yes but in general it is not a standard. The administration costs for RM should be compensated with higher prices. RM has still value. One of them is that they are not spread between hundreds of other users and "more exclusive" what buyers still are willing to pay for. The forum on Alamy is showing that the 180, 240 dollars sales still regular are happening.
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For me, not only Alamy, but 123RF and Fotolia are having an increase in gains, on the other hand SS is falling slightly.
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Hmmm, my average on Alamy in Feb was c$10 net per sale. Not much more rpd than my iStock average was before they introduced subs and took away E+ and Vetta sales.
Alamy have subs of a sort, in the UK Newspaper Scheme, which is why we can sell the same RM rights to the same UK newspaper with different amounts each month - AIUI, they pay a sub, and the amount we get depends on how many files they used in that accounting cycle.
If we're lucky, they might remember which files they used were RM and which were RF, but one very big buyer seems to 'forget' rather often.
Obviously if people are opted out of the UKNS and distribution sales, they'd have fewer sales, a higher rpd and lower total earnings1. But there would still be very low value sales - I've had a few tiny sales reported from Italy and one this month from Germany.
1 One person reported very little change in total income when he left the UKNS, but that's not general, and not what I experienced when I came out of the scheme for some months.
In Feb, I earned >2x as much on iS (reporting not quite completed for the month) as I did on Alamy with approx 3 (iS):2(A) files (different). At this stage in March, my iS credit earnings are actually 40x my one Alamy sale so far.
My total net earnings on Alamy over 7 years is less than those of each of my four best years on iS.
The big difference is that on iS, my dls and $$ are both sinking, whereas on Alamy, my sales are rising, but my net $$ are falling.
Remember that Alamy officially said here that the amount gained for a sale (RF or nonexclusive RM) has nothing to do with the quality or rarity of a file, but only with the discount a buyer has negotiated.
Presumably these $180/$240 sales are gross? So the net will be 50% (or) 30% of these sums,
BTW, "The administration costs for RM should be compensated with higher prices." is seldom valid. Most RM sales are non-exclusive, and incur no extra administration costs. In their official post here from earlier this week, they said they'd always contact us first if a buyer wanted exclusive rights (too bad if we're away photographing outwith web availability). There is a sound argument that RF should cost more than nonexclusive RM, as they can use the file much more widely, and indeed that's how the on-page pricing works for a file designated as RF:
Choose a license from the list below that suits your needs.
Presentation £9.99
Website £19.99
Magazine £79.99
Marketing package: Small business £39.99
Marketing package: Large business £149.99
(The above prices on RF files are exactly the same as RM 'rack rate' prices for the same nonexclusive uses)
On RM prices, there is then a calculator for various other RM uses, aparently non-exclusive. I guess buyers have to contact Alamy directly for any sort of image exclusivity.
Or choose a royalty-free license
XSmall £39.00
Small £60.00
Medium £140.00
Large £165.00
XLarge £210.00
XXLarge £255.00
Added: Sorry, I just noticed that this thread is in the SS forum. I didn't mean to hijack it, and have no personal comparison with SS to make.
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alamy is more decreasing here, but I only have about 700 images there and all of them are RF
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Wow. Just happened to look to the right. How did that happen.?
put on your glasses http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-big-6/alamy-passed-fotolia/ (http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-big-6/alamy-passed-fotolia/) march 1st
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Shady Sue,
I'm in the UK newspaper scheme and despite those $6-10 licenses and other piddly ones, my average gross sale on Alamy has gone from about $30-40 ($15-20 net) for the past few years (after sales prices dropped circa 2012-2013) to around $75 gross ($30+net) since 2015 when prices seemed to improve. I'm in the US so I probably get fewer UK newspaper sales than you do as you're from Scotland (am I right?), so I have fewer to drag down my average, but bottom line I'm earning more per license and seeing more sales this past year. I have a mix of RF and RM sales, though most of my portfolio is RM. Prices appear to average about the same for both - I'm guessing RM is similar to RF even though RF gives you greater usage, because with RM even if non-exclusive they can be pretty sure it's not out there on hundreds of other websites/books/magazines.
Most of my Alamy images are not on the micros.
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Anyway you can always opt out for newspaper scheme. It is just an additional revenue option and not the main stream.
Mirco
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Wow. Just happened to look to the right. How did that happen.?
put on your glasses [url]http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-big-6/alamy-passed-fotolia/[/url] ([url]http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-big-6/alamy-passed-fotolia/[/url]) march 1st
Alamy 25.1
Fotolia 22.5
now at 48.8.. Big Move.
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Anyway you can always opt out for newspaper scheme. It is just an additional revenue option and not the main stream.
Mirco
Actually, if the buyers play fair, it's not too bad, as RM reuses should be paid for every time, unlike RF. But when they use multiple times and don't pay, you have to fill in a form listing and ,linking to every use (they won't accept a Google link) and it can take many months before anything happens. I sent two forms (different images/perps) in early Jan and am still waiting, but I read someone in the forum saying they'd been waiting since August. One of mine is a major bulk buyer: I hope Alamy aren't too scared to rattle their cage. I also wonder if their multiple uses of certain Getty editorial images (RM) are all reported and paid for.